Plum Rains

by Andromeda Romano-Lax

  Angelica paused, absorbing the unspoken news. Scattered wisps moved across the blue sky.

  “Anji-san, we did send you a letter.”

  “I didn’t receive it.”

  “The end was sudden and unexpected,” he said. “But we have no reason to believe she experienced any pain.”

  “Oh,” Angelica said, at a loss for words.

  She was tempted to ask Hiro more questions. Was he really adapting as well as he appeared to be? Did he think about Sayoko often? Was there more they could have done? But something told her not to think too deeply about Sayoko’s passing and not to press for any kind of emotional reaction. At a moment like this, she had been counseled, one had to picture clouds moving across the sky. An upward gaze was allowable, but you were advised not to stare too long or slow the moment in any way. To dwell was counterproductive. To feel deeply was to interfere with healing.

  After a moment, Angelica said, “I’d better get to work.” She nodded at Emi-san. “Very nice meeting you. Forgive the interruption.”

  “Wait,” Hiro said. He reached into a pouch slung on the back of the wheelchair. “From Itou-san. In case I ever ran into you. A card to his club.”

  She took the card in her hands: few words, only an address, and the abstract brushstroke image of a cat.

  “Yes,” Hiro said, with the subtlest bending of knees, a repressed bounce. “He opened a jazz club.”

  “Itou-san? Really? That’s wonderful. So, things have worked out for everyone. I’m so glad.”

  Something seemed wrong: the tenor of the conversation, the lack of any sound but their two voices, the absence of shadows, the too-even color of the sky. There were no cars on the streets.

  Upon first seeing Hiro, she had felt excitement and surprise, but now she felt only—wrong. Like she was at the moment in a dream where you realize it’s a dream, and begin watching more than participating, at a distance from the action. If she felt anything at all, it was only a touch of mild shame. She was failing at her assigned task.

  Angelica did not know how to end things, and Hiro wasn’t helping. “I’m so glad, but I’m also late,” she said again. “Keep in touch. I must be going.”

  Epilogue 2.0

  Angelica took off the visor, keeping her eyes closed for a moment to adjust to the feeling of the real room in front of her.

  The counselor, a slim and energetic Japanese woman named Dr. Abe, removed two adhesive sensors from her temples and continued to peer at her with concern.

  “According to the scan, you were visualizing well and you narrated fluidly. You even reached forward at one point, as if you were grabbing onto someone.”

  “A friend,” Angelica said.

  “So, it was more convincing this time?”

  Angelica nodded.

  “Well done. See? It can be such a helpful process for achieving resolution.”

  She had followed the doctor’s advice to incorporate as many authentic details into the emotiscape as possible, including Datu and Sayoko’s deaths, and the termination money that Itou had kindly deposited in her account to help with her debts to Bagasao. All this news had come to her in the medical facility months earlier, though she was advised not to ruminate over the episodes precisely as they’d happened. (In truth, she had broken down sobbing after hearing about Sayoko and she had refused to eat for two days after Datu’s death, but those details were not essential to recall, Dr. Abe had said.) Instead she was counseled to simplify and harmonize her awareness of these facts as acceptance-oriented visualizations, either in the form of gentle, extended, conflict-free scenes or, if that was too difficult, as fleeting moments of tranquil recognition.

  As an addition to the news-of-Sayoko’s-death-tranquilly-accepted-scene, which she had refined over several feedback sessions, she had been coached to elaborate a probable detail: most likely Hiro would be working for another older woman now, and contentedly so. And of course, she was instructed to add the key hypothetical, not-yet-actualized element—the handing over of the baby to two loving parents who would care for her. In the fantasy, she even allowed herself to believe that visitation, while not yet negotiated and probably doubtful, was possible.

  None of this was real—or as the ever-optimistic Dr. Abe would have said, “Not real yet.”

  In truth, Amaya was only “Baby DareDare 2.23”—“who-who,” or the American-style “Jane Doe,” with a date tag. Angelica had been too depressed to formally name the baby girl, who was still, at four weeks, being held in medical custody. No one had been given permission to see her, not even Junichi, the father of record. Angelica’s postpartum detention was not yet concluded though it had been considerably shortened due to her compliance, following what they had categorized as her suicide attempt, which had prompted early labor.

  There had been no such attempt. Angelica had been in a room alone with access to the medication terminal next to her bed. Bothered by persistent cramps, she had started touching the keypad to check her levels and consider an adjustment. A staff member, entering, had gotten the wrong idea. Once they believed she was suicidal—and why not think so—they’d put her on a higher-level watch. But they also made her eligible for a new research program, determined to assist suicidal mothers.

  “Good cortisol levels,” Dr. Abe said now, studying another graph on the screen, which she courteously swiveled so Angelica could see, too. “We’ll keep monitoring those for the next few hours. After that, the tracers will flush away with your urine, but that should be good data for the day.”

  “Thank you,” Angelica said. “I’m glad the data will help you.”

  “It will help many women,” the doctor added. “Unfortunately, we have a lot of maternal suicides, usually when the fetuses are unhealthy, and many more suicides of women who can’t get pregnant.”

  Angelica nodded, trying to project not only serenity, but satisfaction in doing her part.

  “Glad to help,” she said again, hearing the false note in her voice. She had to work at sounding more convincing—not that they seemed to have perceived any lack of sincerity.

  “And do you feel a measure of relief now?”

  “I feel . . . a greater sense of relational harmony.”

  “And do you have a clearer vision of appropriate actions to take in the near future?”

  Angelica nodded again.

  “Does this mean I am finally allowed a visitor?”

  Dr. Abe paused, pretending to be occupied by Angelica’s recorded brainwaves on the screen in front of them.

  Angelica tried not to sound desperate. “I was told—”

  Dr. Abe folded her arms, studying Angelica’s face. “All right. We’ll try one brief visit. Whom would you like to see?”

  When Hiro arrived, they were allowed to visit in the inner courtyard, full of cherry trees in early spring blossom, their soft petals just beginning to fall, blanketing the damp dark ground in pale pink.

  Every one of the doctors, nurses, and counselors she had met in the last five months had been decent—there was nothing cruel or unusual about the detention hospital overall. But still, she had not seen a single familiar face, and the vision of Hiro approaching down the white hallway had been enough to bring her nearly to tears. He was wearing more clothes now—a sweater and trousers, as well as that old scarf from Rene. His face was the same as the last time she had seen him, and as she’d continued to imagine it, but he moved differently, more fluidly but not quite flawlessly. With every step and swing of the arm he twitched, like a person with barely suppressed tics.

  Now, in the courtyard, she reached a hand toward him, just as she had during the emotiscape behavior modification exercise. He looked down at it for a moment, then took a step forward, wrapping her in a crushing embrace.

  “You are still yourself,” she whispered in Cebuano, meaning his memories had not been erased. He had hidden them in the cloud. />
  “I am, and I am not,” he said. But his voice was giddy, unmarked by loss. He whispered into her ear, “I have . . . skin.”

  That was the cause of the twitchiness and the explanation for the hug as well. He could feel now, well beyond his fingers. He could feel so much he didn’t know what to do with all the sensations.

  “It completes me. I wasn’t truly alive before. But I am now, Anji-chan.”

  “Is that . . . ?” she started to say, suppressing the word, legal?

  “No,” he whispered, applying more pressure as he squeezed her a second time, even longer, the kind of enthusiastic bear hug she had often experienced back home and almost never in Tokyo. “But it’s wonderful.”

  She had worried he wouldn’t understand, but in fact, he was the only person or lifeform that truly did. She had not tried to kill herself. The reverse was true: she had never been so determined to live.

  Her financial debts were gone but other challenges remained. The hospital and the judicial system were not so cruel as to forcibly separate her from her baby altogether, but there were complicated international issues. They had proof, based on medical exams, that she had once received an abortion, illegal in the Philippines at the time and illegal in Japan now. They had additional evidence—though it was questionable—that by interfering with the medical console next to her she had been intent on endangering the life of a child, a more serious crime than endangering one’s own life. They were still deciding if she should be punished in Japan, extradited for punishment in the Philippines, or something else altogether.

  Despite all this, she was consumed by a single, illogical desire.

  She knew, as she had never allowed herself to know before, that she was insignificant in this world. More than ever, she was expendable. In truth, she knew her baby daughter could live a decent life with other parents—Junichi and Yuki, or many other Japanese couples, for that matter. Yuki, in particular, she trusted. For months, she had forced herself to relive that moment in Yuki’s guest room, when Yuki had rested her hand on Angelica’s belly, a kind touch that almost convinced her to give up again, to respond to another’s need, and most importantly, to let herself be replaced.

  Almost.

  She was not truly needed, and for the first time in her life, she had let that soak into the marrow of her bones, just as she had also allowed it to soak in that humanity itself was changing, that some corners of the earth were beyond repair, that robots would replace many of us, perhaps all of us. None of us would be needed anymore.

  Sayoko would’ve had something to say about that—and about cherry blossoms, and plum blossoms, and why the viewing rituals of hanami and umemi should be more than beer parties. It was a sad and beautiful thing, to make oneself fully aware of transience. Mono no aware. Maybe it was only in knowing that nothing lasts that we become human at all.

  Yet—perhaps it was hormones, the ache in her breasts, naïveté or simple delusion—wistful sadness was not enough. Aside from tender despair she also felt a will to resist. She felt joy or at least potential joy, and the hot blood of it hummed in her ears.

  “What I want more than anything . . .” she started to say. Hiro pressed his fingers at her waist, cautioning her, and leaned in closer, whispering in her ear.

  “It doesn’t have to make sense. It merely has to be. As I, too, have decided. They will not limit me. They will not confine me. I would like to see the world beyond Tokyo.”

  Angelica said, “Do you remember what Sayoko-san said about television?”

  “She said she was tired of watching. Not just TV. Everything.”

  Angelica was so relieved to have someone who shared those memories with her, so that Sayoko would not disappear. Between her and Hiro, they had stories from more than a century of Sayoko’s life, preserved.

  “Do you feel lost without her?” Angelica asked.

  “I did, until I saw Itou-san, and he told me the details of her passing. The emergency responders could not understand why her face was darkened. But I understood. I knew then that she had made it home. It gave me secret joy.”

  He pulled Angelica closer and hugged her again, a bit harder than a human might have.

  “Don’t go yet, Hiro.”

  She felt she had to make up for her past mistakes. She felt she had to explain. But he was having none of it. She could feel the delight of empathy pouring from him. She could feel him twitching next to her, the sensitive skin on his face and neck tickled by her hair.

  “You want what Sayoko wanted,” he whispered, “a second chance. You want to love and be loved. Do not apologize.”

  “But what if I am repeating the mistake I made with Datu? What if I am only looking for another person who needs me?”

  They could not say the baby’s name. Too dangerous.

  “It is not the same.”

  Why not? she wanted to ask him. But she knew. It was not the same bleak desperation. It was a delicious thirst, and more than that.

  She said, “They won’t allow it.”

  “The problem with my kind,” he whispered, “is that we too quickly run out of challenges. And we were designed to enjoy challenges.”

  He stepped back from her, still holding one hand, looking up at the night sky darkening over the courtyard. In a perfect square around them, through the courtyard windows, in the brightly lit halls, they could see doctors, nurses and security guards outside doorways, exiting and entering patients’ rooms, holding tablets and wheeling silver carts, a hundred oblivious flashes.

  Hiro squeezed Angelica’s hand even more tightly and said, “It isn’t out of the question.”

  She said, “But alone . . .”

  “Who said anything about alone?”

  “But you have commitments.”

  “She is gone.”

  “But your new person—”

  “She will have no trouble. I am not irreplaceable. We are on the open market now. There are others, now—too many others.”

  She whispered, “What do we . . . ?”

  His voice had dropped low, barely audible, so that Angelica had to lean and strain and even then she might have been imagining the words.

  “The security systems are substandard. I can access all sources of power. Your daughter is four hundred meters to the northwest, through three magnetic doors that will unlock without complication. A container ship leaves for Manila in seventy-two minutes. On the corner, a hired car is waiting. You only need to say one word—”

  “Yes,” she said instantly.

  And the lights all around them went out.

  Acknowledgments

  Thank you first to my family and friends, including Brian and Tziporah, with whom I was so lucky to share East Asia travels, as well as Aryeh, Nikki, Leona, Eliza, Honoree, Evelyn, Stuart and Mildred, and Sharon and John. In Taiwan, thank you to Aho Batu “Doria,” Jason Li, Songyi Lin, Yibin Chen, and all of our other wonderful neighbors. Thanks to Breawna Power Eaton for hosting me in Japan, and especially for letting me ask some of her older students about their attitudes toward robotic eldercare. In Alaska, thank you especially to Becky Harrison-Drake and Richard Drake, Rebecca Johnson and Mark Thorndike (especially for the very special stay in the Girdwood cabin), Stewart Ferguson, Kathleen Tarr, Lee Goodman, and Bill Sherwonit, all of whom provided companionship and hospitality during our transition year in Anchorage, when much of this book was written. I owe the biggest debt to friends and family who were willing to read multiple drafts in revision: Kate Maruyama, whose early encouragement and feedback was especially critical, as well as Brian Lax, Honoree Cress, and Karen Ferguson. At Soho Press, I am eternally indebted to my indefatigable editor, Juliet Grames, and I am grateful for the support and assistance of Bronwen Hruska, Paul Oliver, Amara Hoshijo, Abby Koski, Rachel Kowal, Janine Agro, and Frances Riddle.

  mano-Lax, Plum Rains